northern virginia

I am struggling this morning. While the bachelorette party this weekend was an absolute blast, and a success, my old bones most certainly cannot handle two nights of partying & staying up until 3am and 4am respectively. Not to mention waking up at 5:30 am due to my husband’s alarm waking him up to catch a flight.

HOWEVER. I am done complaining [that is not what this blog is for] and rejuvenating myself instead with a lovely engagement session courtesy of ZADesignz, submitted via Two Bright Lights.

Gretchen and Tom wanted a bicycle-riding-ice-cream-eating engagement session. We went over to Old Town Alexandria, and walked around the area a bit. They went to Ben & Jerry’s for some ice cream, and then they rode the bikes. The yellow brick wall over at Chadwick’s was the perfect background for some portraits. I love the way these came out.

Gretchen and Tom first met on the eleventh floor of Bradfield Hall during meteorology orientation in the fall of 2002. They instantly became friends through shared loves of weather, bowling and Cornell Dairy Bar Ice Cream. Over the years, they shared in enduring engineering math and physics courses, long treks up Libe Slope in a foot of snow and (disappointing) upstate New York stormchasing attempts, but it was not until late in their Cornell careers that Tom and Gretchen discovered they belonged with each other.

Click inside for the rest of Gretchen & Tom’s adorable Old Town Alexandria, VA engagement feature ~ including the proposal!

I apologize that this post is so late today ~ but as I mentioned this morning, I was forced into Grand Jury Duty. Now though, I am happy to report that I LUCKILY got out of it! I am shocked I was able to – and it was really sheer, dumb, luck that I got out of it – but my advice is if you are ever asked to blindly volunteer for something in a courthouse, muster up your best Katniss Everdeen and do it! But anyway, back to the Northern Virginia engagement session at hand!

We met while we were both studying at James Madison University (JMU). We had just returned from winter break and were at a local bar, Dave’s Taverna, for a sorority sister party event. The theme of the night was re-live New Year’s Eve with a recording of the ball dropping and everything.

A few days after first meeting, Stephen called Diane to no avail. Diane never answered her phone and ignored messages – the liquid courage was all gone by this point. Diane thought Stephen was perhaps a bit too smooth talking for her.

[However] after dozens of library (yes Mom & Dad we did go to the library!) run ins and flirtatious note passing, Diane finally agreed to go to dinner with Stephen. From that day forward the sparks were flying and haven’t stopped :)

Click inside for the rest of the images from Stephen & Diane’s Alexandria, VA engagement session, including some adorable shots with their pup, Zoey & to read the adorable proposal story!